Gatepiers, Elshieshields Tower

This is a 16th century L-plan tower house with an altered 18th century house built adjoining its west gable and linking at the upper floors. The tower is harled (roughcast) with red ashlar (dressed stone) dressings, while the house is rendered (plastered) and also has red ashlar dressings. Both have slate roofs.

The tower may have been built around 1567, potentially incorporating a rectangular tower from 1420. It is three storeys high with an attic, and a jamb (projection) at the east end of the north wall rises two storeys higher. A stair turret is corbelled, or projects, from near the main eaves level in the re-entrant angle and is topped with a conical roof. There are bartizans (small defensive projections) over the remaining three angles. Some of the openings are roll-moulded (with a curved profile), and the gables are crow-stepped (where the upper course of stones or tiles overlaps the course below). A door is located in the re-entrant angle of the jamb, with a panel recess above it. A wheel stair (spiral staircase) fills the lower storeys of the jamb, and there are small chambers on the upper floors, decorated with rope and billet mouldings. A corbelled beacon platform sits over the south gable, and a finial (decorative ornament) tops the north gable. The tower's basement is vaulted, and there is some evidence of a possible original door at first floor level on the east gable, with a panel recess above. There are asymmetrically arranged openings on the elevations, and a single dormer window at the south wallhead. Coped end stacks (chimneys) are present, with the west stack rebuilt to incorporate flues for the later addition. A cusped-headed aumbry (a cupboard or niche) is set into the north wall.

The house was originally two storeys and five bays (the division between two rooms). It has well-proportioned margins that are chamfered (edges are cut at an angle). Alterations were mainly made in the late 19th century when a storey was added, giving it crow-stepped gables and pedimented dormer heads above eaves level. Canted ground floor windows (projecting outwards) were also added. A porch, likely from the mid-19th century, is positioned at the front, and a gabled rear stair turret faces north. A second porch, to the north, with a Tudor-arched doorway dates to the earlier/mid-19th century. Mostly sash windows (windows with sliding panes) are present; the upper south-facing windows have a 12-pane glazing pattern. Some original 18th century panelling survives in the ground floor rooms. A low, recessed wing to the west is T-plan and has a three-bay south elevation of exposed red sandstone.

A walled garden lies to the south of the house, with ashlar-coped rubble-built walls linked to the tower at the east and the wing at the west. Panelled and corniced square gatepiers are set to the south, accompanied by curved quadrants and cast-iron gates with spiked rails, all dating to the early 19th century. A detached coach house range to the north is not included in the listing. A rear door is shown as a window in a photographic inventory.